


Contractual Obligations

by Silverlace_Vine



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Justin Hammer is a huge jerk, M/M, Major Character Injury, Plot Twist, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverlace_Vine/pseuds/Silverlace_Vine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stark Industries is still obligated to produce one more major weapon under military contract; when Steve protects Tony from an assassination attempt and is badly injured, things get complicated.</p>
<p>Originally written for a prompt on the Avengers kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contractual Obligations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blakefancier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blakefancier/gifts), [Entropy House (AnonEhouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/gifts).



> Special thanks to blakefancier and entropy_house, who conspired to give me an AO3 invite, because they are wonderful people.

Tony got a letter and promptly pitched a fit. Not the good kind. Not the bitch-and-moan, pace-around-the-Tower-and-berate-his-robots kind of fit. The kind where he doesn't talk to anyone and holes up in his lab for days without adequate food or sleep, and JARVIS, bless his little LED heart, has firm instructions not to let anyone else in unless he's wounded, unconscious, or seriously ill. The others waited and watched, tried to talk to him, but he just kept walking as if he couldn't hear them. Steve advised them to be patient, this was just Tony's way of muscling through .. whatever it was. 

It went on for a little over four days. The morning of the fifth day, while the others were out, JARVIS politely informed Steve that Mister Stark was in need of assistance.

Steve found him facedown over a wastebasket, pale and shaking and coming out of a flashback, the acrid stench of coffee and bile filling the room. He'd seen it before in other soldiers, but in his experience, there was no established protocol that worked for everyone; his policy was to just be there, try to give them what they seemed to need, and what Tony needed at that moment was some fresh air and clean water.

Soon they were sitting on the outside ledge of the Tower, watching the skyline, enjoying the sun going down behind the buildings. They were quiet for a bit, until Steve finally asked, "What set it off?"

"...The logo." Tony answered quietly. 

"Logo?" Steve slid him the water bottle, watched him take a swig and rinse his mouth again. 

Tony spat the mouthful over the side. It made him feel vulgar, but he wasn't ready to care about that just yet. "The Stark Industries logo, one of the crates. It just... made me think." 

"About what?" 

"...You don't know? Fury didn't tell you?" Tony turned to face Steve with an incredulous look. Privacy wasn't SHIELD's priority, ever. 

"Apparently not. Are you going to? I'd like to understand, if you're okay to talk about.. whatever it is."

"...I'm not, really. But you should know." Tony took another sip, and straightened up a little to tell the tale: the Jericho demonstration, the kidnapping, the first prototype for the Iron Man project, Golmirra. "... For a while I was just so completely disgusted with myself. Before, it was business, and I thought, that's life, that's war. I never really said it to myself, but it was just a given-- I was building weapons for _our_ soldiers, I wanted _our_ guys to win."

Steve nods. He can remember the shows, the chorus girls; the whole speech is still somewhere back there in his brain. "A bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun," he says.

Tony snap-points. "See, exactly, you get it. And then there I am, getting blown up by my own tech, watching these young people being killed by these things that I built to help them come home alive-- and when it all comes back on me, I just see the damn crates, with _my name_ on them. I can smell the dust and the metal and it just makes me sick. And now I've got this fucking contract... Don't tell anybody, Steve, but I have no idea what I'm going to do." 

"What contract?" Steve frowned. "I thought you got out of weapons development."

"I did. Stark Industries hasn't been involved in weapons development in a few years, but I still have a contract with the Army. It's been negotiated down quite a bit, Pepper's amazing that way, but I have to give them something before the end of next quarter, and I don't think they're going to let me off the hook if I give them steering columns for Humvees."

Steve didn't like the tone of Tony's voice at all. "...I've never known you to ' _have_ ' to do anything you didn't want to do, Stark. What have they got on you?"

"A public identity." Tony got to his feet, drank the last of the water and headed back into the house; Steve followed him, his face just this side of a scowl. "You know all the damage to Manhattan?"

"You mean that thing where all those out-of-work people who build and furnish buildings and fix damaged cars were contracted by the city to rebuild a few blocks, and they're doing a bang-up job? Broken window parable aside," Steve took a moment to gesture to the skyline, "all the newspapers talk about is all the good that's come out of it. Lots of people are volunteering and donating, the city is contracting with local workers to restore the damage, and half of the new construction--"

"Is more environmentally sound, I know, about a quarter of those donations were from my company." Tony smiles a little, even if Steve's do-good mentality sinks his stomach. He was really trying to explain the guilt of indirectly killing hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers to this man? "The biggest reason they can't sue us for the damages is because none of you guys have a legit identity. Bruce and you are government secrets and they don't know Clint or Natasha's names, plus Thor has that "thunder god living on another planet" thing, kinda hard to serve him a subpoena. I, on the other hand, am Tony Stark, and right now, public opinion and my continued cooperation are the only things keeping them off my ass."

"I seem to recall a lot of great stories about you giving the Army the bird. What's changed?" Steve meandered over to the kitchen and began pulling out things to make a sandwich. Whatever Tony was going through, he wasn't going to be able to go too much longer without anything in his stomach; he was already starting to look sallow. He gestured to one of the barstools for him to take a seat, and found himself more than a little relieved that Tony sat down without complaint.

"... I did the math." Tony picked his head up, but the look on his face hadn't changed. "If I don't produce anything, they can sue for breach of contract. It means I pay a very large fine, and surrender the patents to everything produced under their funding for the last five years. And that's bad, because that includes all the medical tech, the agriculture department, and all the most advanced monster toys I've made that aren't part of the Iron Man project." 

"And if you do produce something?" Steve folded his arms over his chest. "What are you really getting at, here, Tony?"

"If I dick them around, they'll convince the city to sue me for the damages. If they win, the first thing they're going to take is going to be the suits, which the military will then buy from the City of New York, which the City will agree to do because the reconstruction is costing an arm and a leg. And then they have my suits, and then I get to watch them mass produce an Iron Man clone army and let me tell you, last time it didn't work out so well. But if I give them what they want, then... then everything I've done since I became Iron Man is a complete waste. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I can't give them a Jericho Mark II. I can't be responsible for that again.. but I can't let them take the suits--" 

Steve sets the turkey-and-swiss-on-rye in front of him, and-- perhaps the sweetest gesture anyone can make for Tony Stark-- a nice, frosty bottle of Guinness. Tony wilts under the pressure of two hands on his shoulders, reassuring and steady, and just shuts his eyes against the memories of drones, and Vanko, and those crates with his name on them like cheap headstones. He just sounded so tired. "I don't know what to do, Cap."

"What you should do is, 'eat, and then get some sleep'. You're hungry and exhausted; right now, you need rest, more than answers. We'll come up with a plan tomorrow."

Steve put Tony to bed, in that he made sure Tony didn't pass out on the stairs on his way to his bedroom, and then found himself with a unique problem. Whether because he was just too tired and upset to really think about the implications, or because it was such a serious problem that he'd let go of his usual bravado, Tony Stark, genius inventor, had admitted to him, out loud, that he didn't know what to do. 

Being the Star Spangled Man With The Plan, Steve couldn't help feeling like that made it his responsibility to find another solution. Of course, what he knew about modern lawsuits could fit on the head of a pin between the toes of dancing angels, but that didn't matter. And naturally, there was the whole business of Tony being a genius who knew the situation inside-out and backwards, so if there were loopholes involved, Tony would have found one. He thumbed through as many of SHIELD's records as JARVIS could get ahold of, did as much research as he could on the subject, and then he found himself out of ideas.

Where modern sensibilities failed, Steve found the direct approach worked best. Unfortunately, the direct approach was, it seemed, an old-fashioned way of doing things. Then again, old-fashioned was what he seemed to be pretty good at. 

So he took an old-fashioned walk around town, had a couple of old-fashioned conversations, did some old-fashioned charity work. And when that didn't work, he came home, and fixed himself an old-fashioned dinner.

The whole situation seemed so weirdly unfair, not just because of what it was putting Tony through, but because it just didn't sound like something an organization that he'd been so desperate to sign on with would do. Shouldn't they be able to respect the conscience of a man who'd already done so much for them, both as weapons developer and as a front-line fighter in the war against alien threats? Shouldn't they be obligated to respect the right of a private citizen to do what he wants with his own inventions?

And that didn't take into account the matter of public opinion. Iron Man's face was all over the city; all the Avengers had their weird graffiti-shrines and handmade dolls, people getting tattoos and, Steve's personal favorite, respectably short haircuts in their honor. This was how the world saw them, as heroes, as role models. And now that admiration served as the bastion against the military-- the army that Steve himself had falsified documents to enlist in, so many years ago-- trying to get a man trying to turn a new leaf to compromise his showroom-new sense of accountability?

When he phrased it like that in his own mind, it cast a very unflattering light on Uncle Sam, and he didn't quite know how angry that made him until he went to pick up his drink and squeezed it so hard, it shattered and filled his potato full of glass shards.

He stared at it for a moment, and then he called Bruce.

"It's a press conference, Tony, no one's asking you to finalize anything." Pepper handed Tony a suitjacket, which he promptly hung back up on the back of a chair as he passed. They were swirling around the workshop like bubbles in a draining sink.

"No, absolutely not. I'm not going in front of the American public and telling them that yes, in fact, Stark Industries is whoring to Uncle Sam again." 

"Stark Industries isn't whoring to--"

"You're right, they're talking about using a complicated hostage threat scheme to confiscate my body parts to use against my will? So it's really less whoring and more rape. Aren't you CEO now? Isn't this your call?"

"Yes, it is my call, and my call is that you need to do this, and talk about your professionally and ethically responsible approach to fulfilling your contractual obligations to the People of the United States of America." 

That seemed to sting Tony the wrong way, and he spun on his be-sneakered heel to address Pepper directly. "My obligation to the People of the United States of America is to _not kill any more of them_ , Pepper. I am not building any more missiles, I am not building any more bombs, and I don't think the brass is going to accept my prototype for a combination hydraulic spreader and marital aid so they can remove the sticks from their assholes and then _go fuck themselves_. Which, for the record, I would rather host on livestream than actually involve myself in the bullshit donkey show you're describing."

Pepper was just grateful for having stopped him from running from her, and tried to pin him to where he stood with a stern bit of eye contact. "Tony, be serious."

"I am completely serious; JARVIS, send Miss Potts the schematics and blueprints for the Cocks of Life."

"Of course, sir. Shall I engage the manipulatable 3D projection?"

"Oh, is it ready? Because--"

"JARVIS, no, no, thank you." Pepper shoved the backup suitjacket and a manila folder into Tony's personal space, and didn't take them away when he pouted at them.

"You know, I'm starting to think you're abusing the privilege of handing me things." He began leafing through the paperwork, and frowned. "These aren't mine." 

"No, they're not. It's all R&D notes from within the company, though, so technically it belongs to you, anyway. All you're going to do is tell the press that you're working with some new designs outside of your normal repretoire. You're very impressed with yourself--"

"That does sound like me. How impressed with myself am I?"

"Impressed enough that you will need to make some serious considerations before you decide whether this development will change which Stark Industries' project will be demonstrated for your last military contract, which is why you won't be discussing it prematurely."

"'Prematurely', huh? Will you get mad at me for making a dick joke? It feels like you set that up for me."

"Keep it tasteful, you've already used up about half your daily allotment."

"I'll try very hard. Oop, there's another one! Damn, I better start high-grading them." He took a breath and put the jacket on, briefly setting aside the packet while he did. "So you want me to stall, is what you're saying. I can do that. Why didn't you just say so?" 

Tony turned to the design pages and the editor's notes. The drawings suggested a flak jacket, made with a few material improvements. As body armor went, it didn't look like anything special, except for a couple of notes in the corners, most specifically "anti-Iron Man Tactical Vest", a phrase that pulled a very dark expression over Tony's face. "... It says this is designed to stop my repulsors. Who came up with this?" 

Pepper was already looping his necktie under his collar. "Worry about that later, your flight leaves in less than five minutes and I'm not letting you miss it."

###### 

"What posessed you to want to come out here for this, Cap? Will New York be okay without you?" 

"I thought I should try getting out of the city once in awhile. And I've never really seen you in front of the cameras, seems like I'd be able to understand it better if I didn't have to interpret all the censor bleeps." 

"In retrospect, it was probably cruel of me to introduce you to YouTube, you have my sincere apologies for the hours you will waste in front of cat videos. Most of them are F-bombs, by the way."

Tony was having his pre-presentation highball and generally getting his head together while Pepper handled the circus show in the conference room. Steve, for reasons that Tony could not name and assumed he only partially approved of, had accompanied them, and looked appropriately like he had inherited his wardrobe from someone's stodgy grandpa. "Would you rather I didn't come?"

It seemed a loaded question, though Tony knew that was more his cynicism than any interrogative muscle on Steve's part. So he gave it the appropriate considerations and answered, "Yes and no. On the one hand, you are..." _My friend? My teammate? My leader? My It's Complicated?_ "...you, and I'm me, and it's better that we're..." _together,_ "... in the same place; safer, you know, two superheroes within shouting distance."

Steve leaned against the wall. It seemed so much easier to keep it cool when people around him were losing theirs, and Tony was pretending his fingers weren't shaking. The liquid in his glass gave him away. "And on the other hand?"

"... And on the other hand, I'm about to admit to the public that I'm a-- _a shiftless backslider_ , and now I have to do it in front of _you_. I don't know if you appreciate the magnitude of what it means to me, to stand up in front of Captain America, and announce to the world that I am still the Merchant of Death."

"Why does saying it front of me matter? I know you don't want to be involved with any of this; did you forget the part where I found you being physically ill over how much you don't want to do this? In fact, I'm not going to disrespect the fact that you're following through on your word, even if you wish you hadn't given it in the first place. You're not a backslider, Tony, and you're not a 'merchant of death'. You're just in a bad situation. You'll get through it, and we'll figure out a solution. Safer together, right? It'll be fine."

Steve's hands on his shoulders must be the most reassuring thing in Tony's world, at least tied with being in the suit and flying; it wasn't armor, and it sure as hell wasn't going to save him from the snapping horde of pirhanas out there, but it stopped his hands from shaking, and that would have to be enough. 

When Pepper leaned into the green room and ushered Tony out to the podium, his mouth was dry and he had the smell of a makeshift forge and sun-baked stone in his nose, his wrist felt faintly sore; suddenly he felt as though he could pick out each and every jagged edge of metal lodged in his heart, and the gentle hum of the reactor suddenly felt like a subwoofer in his chest.

But this wasn't his first time to the Stupid Bullshit Rodeo, and he tapped the microphone; the familiar clicks of cameras and flipping of notepads and recorders greeted him.

To his credit, he kept it level; he'd had plenty of practice. "So, here's the deal. Today I'm supposed to announce Stark Industries' last project under military contract. I know I said that we wouldn't be producing any more weapons, but that is what the military wants, and the Jericho Mark II is currently still in development. However, I have been working with some unusual designs that I feel are very... significant, and I may reconsider submitting the Mark II for review in favor of exploring these new possibilities."

Naturally the clamor went up for questions, but that part all dissolved into a blur of meaningless cacophony, until one piercing, female voice asked, "There are rumors that these new commissioned designs are for anti-Iron Man armament; are they true?"

"...I'm not prepared to answer that at this time, my decision isn't finalized and I feel it would be premature to speak on a matter that has not been fully examined or resolved." It was a very tactful way to say 'yes'.

The reporter noted that with a very sharply attractive quirk of her lips, and then tilted her head slightly, in the way that suggested she had gotten into this line of work out of an admiration for the plucky, sassy, what-a-scoop archetype. "Mr. Stark, how do you feel about being asked to produce materials that are specifically designed for use against you?"

Tony took a careful breath. It had been a very long time since he sweat in front of a camera, but for once, the overzealousness of the press was working out in his favor. So he smiled, and replied, "I feel that anything meant to be used against Iron Man alone, is only doing about one-sixth of the job it needs to do to stop anything I try to accomplish. And since what I'm trying to accomplish is the assurance of continued peace, it seems like a huge waste of money. Then again, these are the people who admitted to paying four hundred bucks for a hammer." 

There were a few laughs, a lot of applause, a general sense of approval from the crowd. Good sign; Good work, Stark, all right. He offered the crowd a peace sign, and moved to step down from the podium. 

What happened next was a blur; later, when he tries to remember it, his mind will want to say there was fire and explosions, when really there were only a few flashbangs and gas canisters and shrieking press agents. He can't see and the smoke burns his eyes and his lungs; he can hear Pepper screaming, the rattle of papers and briefcases, the suit is warming up and it can't happen fast enough--

At the last minute he heard someone lift a pistol and managed to make out a silhouette in the fog, and for all the other noise ringing in his ears, his mind supplied his knowledge on it: gas-operated, semiautomatic, .50 AE, and a really tasteless cobalt finish pointed right at him. Tony scrambled to get away, and then there was a fantastic gunshot, practically cannonfire, and a heavy, dark shadow in front of him, and everything was chaos and death--

And then the suit was sealing over him, embracing him like a familiar lover; the filtration system practically sucked the smoke out of his lungs and the display cleared his vision, and from there, it's always just a foregone conclusion.

Six men with rifles went down like gassed hornets, the man with the pistol found himself pinned down, a Hammer Industries jersey on under his vest and the manila envelope with the anti-Iron Man equipment designs tucked under his arm. Hammer Industries' cheap knockoff of the Desert Eagle hung loosely in his hand, and he looked way too young to be doing it for anything but not enough money.

"Don't you think it would have been smarter to try to kill me _after_ you guys built this stuff?" 

One burst burned the paperwork to a fine puff of ash, and a headbutt put the poor idiot into unconsciousness.

Iron Man stood up again and scanned the room, but he caught a glimpse of Pepper's hair through the fog, and then a lot of blood, and a familiar brown motorcycle jacket, and a Super Soldier who wasn't moving. 

For Tony, it was like everything around him had just stopped. Where he'd normally be asking questions and answering them himself, there was nothing but silence and the pounding of blood in his ears. Pepper was shrieking and, distantly, he could hear the sound of security guards and SHIELD agents racing to the scene, but for the moment, none of that mattered.

Steve was sprawled bonelessly on the floor, a smear of blood leading to a spreading pool that suggested he'd been blown back by the force of the shot. His pupils were sharpened down to pinpricks but he wasn't seeing anything, just staring loosely in Tony's direction like a big, broken doll. The hole in his chest was a crater, the skin and bones erupted from the center of a golf-ball sized hole. When the emergency personnel came and loaded him up onto a gurney, blood poured out of him and splashed all over the tile; that was the sound that burst the glass shell around Tony's mind, and it made him retch inside the suit.

He managed a shaky apology to Pepper, and then he was following the helicopter. The whole way to the helicarrier, he was never sure if he was really seeing more blood dripping from the doors, or if he was just imagining it.

He only got to watch the procedure because no one could kick Iron Man out. There was somebody talking in his ear, trying to get him out and telling him it would be fine. It didn't seem very convincing while he watched a team of surgeons trying to dig an action express round out of Steve's torso. The muscle and skin were trying to knit around the metal, which meant the surgeons were cutting into the new tissue in order to try to reach the slug, and every time they did the blood came flooding out of the wound again.

Logically he knew it shouldn't look that bad, it only looked that bad because the Serum was working overtime to heal Steve's body-- except they weren't letting it do its job. The grooves in the tile floor were dark with his blood, pooling in the drain like a horror show.

Time didn't seem to start again until one of the surgeons lifted a grotesque chunk of metal out of the gaping wound. She dropped it into a pan with a loud pang, and gave the order to finish up. Tony finally found himself being dragged out of the ER and into a greenroom, and he didn't realize it was Nick Fury until the sounds of the surgery were completely out of his ears. 

"Stark. What happened?"

And now that he had feeling back in his limbs and air in his lungs again, he decided to use them. "Why the fuck are you asking me that? How the fuck did Hammer-- fucking _Justin Hammer_ \-- get a team of _kids_ into a building that _you were watching_ , what kind of bullshit circus act are you running, you had guys right over us!" 

"Yes, I did, because something was blocking our surveillance and I sent a team in as soon as it went down. I'm sorry it wasn't soon enough, but screaming at me isn't helping. Right now, you are the only person who knows what went on in there. So calm down, and answer the goddamn question."

"I-- I don't know-- _I don't know._ " Tony pried his helmet off and lobbed it gently onto the ugly couch, making a mental note to analyze whatever the hell it is that gives Fury the ability to put that kind of force into a handful of words and a mean cyclops-stare. "One minute I'm standing there, doing the PR thing, and then... and then there's a kid, with a gun-- and Cap--- he just---" 

The memories crawled back, distorted and warped with past trauma and the chaos of the moment, but Tony pauses as he starts to realize what that shadow in the fog must have been. 

"... He took a bullet for me. He took a bullet for me, he didn't have the shield but he- he jumped in anyway-- like a fucking idiot hero, because he's an _asshole_ , he didn't--"

"All right, all right. I get it. Wait here, I'll have someone bring you in when he's been moved." 

Fury walked out of the room and made a point of shutting the door behind him, leaving Tony alone, standing in a room full of uncomfortable couches and shitty paintings. The face of his implacable better half stared up at him, and it didn't have any answers either.

Time started becoming meaningless again, mainly because it just wouldn't move anymore. Oh, sure, JARVIS could tell him that five minutes had passed, or six, or still six, until he advised Tony that it wasn't going to help his nerves to keep asking, but that didn't do him any good. By the time a relatively young, gentle-faced SHIELD agent came to walk him to what passed for the helicarrier's ICU, he'd all but given up on it. 

"Have you seen him?" Tony picked up his helmet and followed at a brisk pace, and tried not to think of Phil. It should've been him, making this trip.

"Captain Rogers, sir? Yes." He didn't quite look old enough to drink, and he dressed more like he belonged in data entry somewhere than the bridge; no slinky jumpsuit, no snazzy black g-man outfit, just some black slacks and a grey polo. In a way, it was comforting to know even SHIELD had its nobodies.

"How's he looking?"

"Sir. You want me to give you the speech they want me to give you, or the truth?"

"That second one." Had he been in a better humor he might have cracked a joke, or slipped him some money for that answer; the idea of being stuck in a greenroom for however long it had been, only to have some punk feed him lines about it... "intolerable" wasn't really the appropriate word.

The kid stopped them in the hallway. "You ever seen anybody after really bad surgery before, sir?" 

"Just mine. And stop with the 'sir' stuff, would you? I'm not that old."

"Yes, sir." He offered a small, wryly apologetic smile. "He looks like fifty miles of bad road, he's still going to look like it when you see him. He's pale, he's weak, he's hooked up to a bunch of stuff, and he's covered in bandages, so be ready for that. Also, I heard they think he'll be awake soon because he kept waking up on the table, so he might have some memory of people digging in his chest with tools. Most people don't really gel with that right away."

"Yeah, I can imagine." Tony swallowed a little, thinking of Yinsen and the dim light of a cave, and the stench of moulding car-battery acid. 

"Other than that, the prognosis is good. Honestly, sir, what he really needs is somebody who can sit with him, talk to him, make sure his mind gets better the same rate his body does. I mean, come on, he's Captain Friggin' America, even if he was clinically dead he'd still be halfway to okay. I've even got orders to make sure he gets a high-protein dinner tonight-- real food, not an IV or a feeding tube or anything." Polo Shirt seemed to find this to be very exciting.

Tony nodded. "Good. If he's allowed to have real food while he's on this boat, and you can find a way to get a T-bone and a chocolate malt up here somehow, I'll reimburse whatever account you have to draw on." 

Polo Shirt beamed like he'd won a bet. "Can do, sir. I'll have Acquisitons out before sundown. Captain Rogers' room is the last door on the right."

Tony didn't waste any time, and made his way down the hall.

"Oh! Sir, by the way?"

"What?" 

"They said.. while he was on the table, he was asking for you."

Tony opened the door with just enough force that he inwardly chastised himself for not being quiet in a hospital. Then he laid eyes on Steve, and felt his heart drop into his boots.

He was propped up in a bed, hooked up to a bunch of monitors that beeped in a comfortingly regular rhythm. His skin looked pale and sallow under the dim courtesy lights, his eyes sunken and watery as he stared up at nothing; the bandages were thin to let his skin breathe while it healed itself, and the heavy stitches showed through it like barbed wire. 

Somehow, it calmed Tony down, as though up until he saw it with his own eyes, he might have believed everyone else was lying to him about Steve surviving the whole thing. The frantic fear quietly ebbed away, the anger simmered down. 

And then Steve caught movement in his peripheral vision, and he sat up and, however weakly, however pallid and drawn and sick it looked, he smiled. "You made it."

"You son of a bitch." There was a brief, tense moment, where Tony didn't know whether to hug him or strangle him, and in the end, he took the middle road and just pushed Steve back down against the pillows, and maybe out of slightly vindictive carelessness, he wasn't especially careful of putting pressure on his stitches. "Where the hell was your shield, Boy Scout?"

"In your dressing room, cupcake." Steve winced, but went down anyway. "...They wouldn't tell me what happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me, Steve! You took the bullet, remember?" Tony grabbed one of the uncomfortable molded-plastic chairs and sat down at Steve's bedside. "Everybody was fine except, y'know, you, with that whole "getting shot point-blank with a hand-cannon" thing. Just a lot of smoke and bullshit, that's all. What the fuck were you thinking?!"

"I wasn't trying to take the bullet, Tony, I was trying to get the gun..I just didn't get there fast enough." 

"Oh, come on, Steve, you really expect me to think you'd get into hand-to-hand range with a man brandishing a pistol at two effective civilians?"

"Yes, because that's what happened." Steve made the effort to sit up again; his bandages darkened a little with fresh blood at the center. "...Usually I'd just run up and deck him, but... it just happened too fast. I got caught napping on this one, Tony; I'm not proud of it, but that's all it is. I screwed up, even if it wasn't a mistake."

"Did you forget the part where I'm a genius, Cap? For all your colorful rainbow of faults, you never misjudge distance and timing. You could have thrown something, you could have pulled up the rug, you could have--"

"I wasn't thinking clearly."

"What, was standing behind Pepper in a pencil skirt just too much for your delicate, Greatest Generation sensibilities? I guess they didn't make heels that high in your day, I'd probably be distracted, too, showing all that sexy bare knee action--"

"I was worried about _you!_ " Steve barked the words, and immediately regretted it as he launched into a flurry of hacking coughs. Tony's eyes widened and he went to help Steve sit up, but the blond man weakly shoved his hand aside, too frustrated to accept any sympathy. 

It took a long while for Steve to get himself back under control, and when he did, there was more blood on his chest, and he sank back against the bed as if he'd lost the strength to stand up; the heart monitor beeped angrily as it started to slow back down to comfortable levels. When he could breathe properly again, he closed his eyes. "All I saw... was that there was some loony pointing a gun at Tony Stark and not Iron Man, and then... I was moving. The rest just... didn't matter." 

Tony froze as though someone had poured cold water down his back. "...That's dangerous thinking, Cap." He kicked himself, he should just be saying thank you. That's what Steve would do, if it was the other way around. But then again, if it was the other way around, Tony realized, he'd be dead. 

"I know. It would be different... if you'd had your armor on... if I'd had my shield... if it was official. But.. it wasn't." Steve turned his head away, and focused on steadying his breath as he spoke. "It was just me, being unwilling to stand and watch somebody trying to take you out of my life. Maybe that makes me a bad leader... but I don't regret it." 

He should have stopped himself, and he was thinking he should stop himself the whole time he was reaching to do it. But Tony lifted his hand and gently rested it against Steve's face anyway. The armored gauntlet meant he couldn't feel his skin, or the soft fringe of blond hair as he gently ran his fingertips through it, but the warmth of it bled right through the metal. "...Maybe it makes you a bad leader. But it makes you a pretty good friend, Steve." 

Steve managed a short, half-chuckled huff of breath, and leaned his cheek into Tony's palm as if the gauntlet weren't there at all. As though the wound and the stitches and the blood loss and the fatigue weren't enough, the faint edge of shyness and fear in his smile made him seem suddenly very vulnerable, and almost disappointed. "... Yeah. I think...I think I can live with that." 

__A beat of silence stretched between them; Tony froze on the spot, Steve tried to stay stoic, but it felt like Steve had finally broken the insubstantial boundary of their friendship as easily as he might have popped a soap bubble.

Tony's hand stayed where it was, fingers gently aligned with his jawline. "Tell me that's not why you took a bullet for me." 

Steve said nothing; if that wasn't answer enough, the heart monitor betrayed him, and so did the clenching of the muscles in his jaw. 

" _Tell me_ that isn't why you _took a bullet_ for me, Steve Rogers." 

"I can't, Tony, I'm sorry. I know it was for the wrong reasons but... the result is the same. I won't say it, if you don't want to hear it. I respect that, I'm not trying to ask you for anything or guilt you, it's just... sometimes you don't realize what's important to you until you're called upon to defend it, and you're important to me, Tony." 

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to snark and pace and lash out, because that made the most sense, that was the easy part. But it was quiet, and dark, and Steve's cheek felt so warm and so gloriously alive under his hand, and he didn't have the heart to be mad anymore. So he leaned down to let his forehead rest against Steve's, and lingered close enough that he could just barely feel the other man's breath on his own skin. 

__Steve began to breathe a little faster, the rise and fall of his chest a little more pronounced, a little more alive. When he spoke, it was barely louder than a whisper, his body tense, attention focused to the hair's breadth of space between them. "I swear I can be happy, just being a good friend to you."

__Tony closed his eyes, and very gently sealed their lips together in a slow, soft kiss.

__"I can't."_ _

__It didn't linger, couldn't last; under better circumstances it might have turned into something more, something that had to decide between caution and impulse; but the fact was that Steve was hurt, too hurt for anything more than that few heartbeats' worth of closeness.

__Tony pulled away slowly, and lightly gripped Steve's hand in his own. "That's incentive enough to get well soon, right?" He laughed, and it was awkward, and difficult, because oh God what had he just done.

__But Steve nodded, settling back with a small, hopeful smile. At least there was a bit more color on his cheeks, and he might have offered something a little less uncomfortable, but the door opened and the lights came to life.

__Polo Shirt was back, ushering the rest of the team into the room.

__Clint raised an eyebrow. "Having a moment in the dark, huh, guys? Classy."

__Bruce and Natasha followed him in, trailing a very unhappy Thor behind them; the good doctor wasted no time in hurrying over to Steve's side and checking him over for damages.

__"Yeah, well, some people know not to come barging into a sick man's room," Tony replied. It was almost prim.

__"Uh huh. I'll remember that for next time. Seriously, though, what happened? Jesus Christ, Cap, you look like shit warmed over. Are you-- well, no, of course you're not, but will you be okay?"

__Cap laughed, and then coughed. "I'll be fine, eventually. Hard to tell how long it'll be... with the healing and all."

__Natasha nodded to Polo Shirt, who exited the room without any further involvement, and the hospital room belonged to them again. "Can you tell us what happened?"

__"Hammer, is what happened. He sent a team into a press conference I was giving, to steal some designs. They didn't get them, but Cap here..." He half-shrugged toward the bed, where Bruce was working on changing his bandages, and Steve was trying to look nonchalant.

__Natasha frowned very deeply. Well, for her, anyway; on most people it would have been an expression of mild displeasure. "How are we going to deal with this? If it was corporate posturing, that would be one thing... but this is bigger. SHIELD took over for the NYPD, Fury's letting us take point."

__"...How, exactly?" Bruce asked. He was pleased to find that Steve was finally not gushing blood, though the wound wasn't any closer to closing.

__"A white-collar criminal just sent a hit squad after Iron Man and put Captain America in the hospital over a packet of drawings. That's not the kind of thing we're used to letting slide; this guy gets away with it, the next guy thinks he's got a chance." Clint answered. "It's not technically company policy, but we get a free shot, if we want to take it." If he were the type to carry a revolver, it was the kind of sentence that deserved a spin of the cylinder for punctuation.

__"He's still a normal human. He has rights," Steve put in. "He should be arrested and tried like anybody else."

__Tony frowned. "He'll beat it. They were wearing his logo, and I'm sure he was behind it, but legally, I don't think there's a lot of chance that he'll ever even be formally questioned over it. I don't know what police corruption looked like back in your day, Cap, but Hammer makes a lot of donations to the police department, and I know he rubs elbows with city officials."

__"All the elbows you rub, and you don't have anybody who can top that?" Natasha offered him a wry half-smile.

__"Of course not, I do _actual work_. Hammer's got plenty of time that I don't; it's easy to go around schmoozing and paying off OPP when you don't do anything." 

__"That still makes it time and money well-spent. All right." Clint frowned. "So how are we going to play this? Nothing's public yet."

__Somehow, even if he was laid up in a hospital bed with a chest would deep enough to hide a coffee cup, Steve managed to clasp Bruce's arm and sit up. "...This is all off the books, right? Natasha, Clint? If it was your call, what would you do?"

__Clint lifted one shoulder, gesturing to his bow. "I saw the dossier on this guy, the world won't cry for him. Also? I don't like his face. Even if it weren't personal-- which it is-- I'd be happy to see the women he's paying gag money to get a cut of his very sizeable estate."

__Natasha gave it a moment of thought. "He's a defense contractor. He can't disappear overnight without causing a lot of unnecessary problems; people would investigate. They wouldn't find much, but it would look bad for Stark Industries if word-of-mouth beats the cover-up-- that's a legitimate possibility, it was a roomful of the press."

__"Mm." Steve frowned, and turned his attention to Bruce. "What about you, Doctor? Any thoughts?"

__"I don't think escalating is a good idea." He swallowed once, and worked on taping the bandages back up, gently as possible. "I don't... I don't really know anything about him, but he didn't get what he wanted. Brushing him off, showing him we're not impressed.. might be the best way to stop it.. but.. well. It's not very satisfying. I'm sorry."

__Steve clapped Bruce carefully on the shoulder, companionable and as reassuring as possible. "Don't be sorry for being a grown-up about it; it's okay." He smiled, and it got a bit of a laugh out of the rest of the room. "What about you, Tony?"

__"I'd be happier with him dead, honestly. But I don't think it looks good for us as heroes to pull the whole ant-versus-boot thing on a human, even if we're the only ones who know about it." Tony scowled, but Steve was very, very proud of him for that answer, and didn't attempt to hide it. "If we do it the legal way, the kid who pulled the trigger will end up in much deeper shit over it, and I don't think I want it on my conscience to put somebody who's not old enough to drink on trial for this until I know for sure he wasn't being coerced somehow. Fury's probably on that."

__Steve nodded, and then looked to Thor, who had been lingering in the back of the room with a very, very unpleasant look on his face. He folded his arms over his chest. "I should not think we wish to handle this in the manner I would like."

__"I doubt it. But I want your thoughts anyway, Thor." Steve smiled. "I think it's important to know what the.. ah, regal thing to do would be."

__"I would demand satisfaction. Were I a King in Midgard, I would call him before the people and I would name his crime: that he made an attempt on the life of Tony Stark out of cowardice, and in courage, Captain America was laid low. And when the people demanded his blood paid in justice, I would serve it to them with a very terrible grace."

__Clint grinned. "Good man."

__"I do try." Thor was pleased; getting accustomed to Midgard's idea of what was appropriate had been difficult, and his solutions were best when there wasn't a lot of social element to be considered. Still, sometimes it was nice to hear that, somewhere out there, there was a world where exactly what you wanted to do was the socially acceptable response; it was good for morale. "But if this is not an option, what else are we to do? Can we demand weregild without involving the courts? Surely Steve Rogers must be worth a handsome price for his station and the rarity of his condition."

__Natasha and Clint shared a very pointed, very pleased look between them, and Natasha turned her attention back to Steve with an intensity that made him smile despite himself. "Captain Rogers?"

__"Yes, Agent Romanov?"

__"I think Clint and I can handle this to everyone's satisfaction." She grinned.

__There are few creatures in the world that can outright refuse Natasha anything, especially not with a legitimate expression of glee on her face; Steve Rogers is not one of them. "Do it."

__She turned and lead Clint out of the room, a certain, somewhat disturbing cheer about them that no one really wanted to question.

__"Well! If it isn't Pepper Potts. I hear you're CEO now, that's great." Justin Hammer leaned back in his chair, and looked for all the world like the smug bastard he really was, from the greasy smirk on his face to the expensive-yet-somehow-tacky cream-and-silver suit. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I wish you would've called, I could have met you for lunch. Who.. ah, who's your little friends, there?"

__"This is Natalie Rushman, and Clive Bartow. They work for me." Pepper gestured to the very dapper lady and gentleman behind her, satisfaction clinging to her like fine jewelry. "We're here to propose a deal, and I really think you'll like it."

__Natasha's face remained coolly impassive. "Nice to see you again, sir."

__"Charmed, I'm sure. I notice, there's a gun, and a... is that a bow?" Hammer peered at them over the top of his glasses.

__"Yeah. I'm a real circus act." Clint grinned down the shaft of the arrow already nocked.

__Pepper sat down primly in the chair on the other side of the desk, flanked by her two bodyguards like armed statues. She watched the sweat start to bead along his neck, and tried very hard not to smile as she watched his hand reach for the button under the center drawer; she remained admirably silent when it became very obvious that no one was coming. It's very hard for unconscious security guards to respond to disconnected silent alarms.

__When it became clear that the weapons weren't going away and no one was coming to help him, Hammer laughed uncomfortably, and rubbed his hands together. "Pepper. Come on, doll, this isn't _you_ , this isn't how you do things. What's this really all about? Let's get whatever misunderstanding this is based on cleared up." He leaned back to reach for a decanter of brandy on the shelf behind him, and poured two tumblers' worth. 

__"Misunderstanding? Oh, no. I think we're all very clear, Justin." Pepper slid a piece of paper across the desk, along with a very elegant silver pen. "Sign it, and we all walk away winners. No police, no investigations, no one has to find out that your little underpaid sycophant-- who sang like a cockatoo, by the way-- put a bullet in Captain America instead of assassinating Tony Stark. For hush money, it's not bad. Of course, you don't need me to tell you about the price of silence."

__Justin gave her an incredulous look, but he scanned the agreement and didn't deny anything. "...This is ridiculous. Pepper, come on, I get that you want to do business here, but this isn't _business_ , this is a _joke_ , one that's got far, far too many zeroes to be funny." He gestured with his glass, shaking his head. "I know you're a little new to the big time, babe-- and that's fine, that's great, we all had dry socks once! I'm not disrespecting that-- but let's shave this down a little bit, get it down to a size you can actually fit your mouth around." 

__"Natalie? Clive?"

__The tumbler and the decanter exploded in a shower of glass and spraying brandy, burst by a bullet and an arrow respectively.

__Justin put down the remains of his drink and picked up the pen; Pepper did not try to hide her smile.

__"... And we just walked out of there, smooth as ice." Clint drained his champagne flute and then spun it idly on his fingertip, as pleased with himself as an overfed housecat. "It was fun, it's been awhile since I actually had to wear a suit to work. I didn't even mess up my shoes, unlike some people. It's a shame, 'Tasha, they looked good on you."

__Natasha smiled; she'd ditched her heels after she broke one on a security guard; now they were sitting on Tony's workbench, awaiting repairs or dismantling and she was perched on the bar in her pinstriped dress. "I miss my Louboutins. Blood doesn't show up as much on the bottom."

__"Pepper." Tony leaned over to her and rested his head on her shoulder. "Pepper. Did it really go like that? Did you really dress up my master-assassin superhero friends and storm into his building and knock out all his guys and blow up all his booze and make him buy out my contract for twice its original worth?"

__"That's exactly how it happened." Pepper sipped her own drink, quietly pleased with all this.

__He flopped into her lap and tossed one knee up over the back of the couch, the other stretched out on the coffee table. "That's it. Take me. All the freaky stuff I said I was too sober for? My body is ready."

__"I don't think I've ever even _heard_ of anything that was too freaky for your tastes, Tony." 

__"Well, now's your chance! C'mon, there's gotta be something in your toy box I haven't found yet. Nipple clamps? Cat o'nine tails? Latex gas-mask with dildo hose? Seriously, I'm up for anything, if I lose my nerve, just have Clint tell the story again."

__"Actually." Natasha hopped down, and came over to very slyly pull Pepper out from under Tony's shoulders; he hit the overstuffed cushions with a light 'pwoff'. "Since technically she contracted us for this job, I believe Agent Barton and I need to officially debrief her."

__"What?" Tony sat up. "I have briefs. I could be convinced to part with them. I'd have to put them on first, but I'd be willing to do that."

__"Sorry, Stark." Clint grinned, watching Pepper wave to Tony over her shoulder as Natasha bustled her off. "You know the professional life." He refilled his champagne flute and set it gently in Tony's hands, and then sauntered off after the girls with a deliberate lightness to his steps that seemed rather evocative of a tightrope-walk.

__Tony drained the glass once he thought he heard Pepper giggling and saying something about a pillow fight.

__And just like that, the house was quiet again. Bruce had gone back to Cambodia or India or something, once he was sure Steve was on the mend. Pepper and the Wonder Twins were off doing... something, behind soundproof walls. Tony preferred not to speculate on the grounds that he didn't really want to work himself up into a left-out pout over it.

__Besides, he was in far too good a mood for that. He practically skipped down the steps to the workshop, fully prepared to take a car apart for fun and bask in the magnificence of his suits-- which were now in no danger of being confiscated or sold or dissected for research, because the Jericho Mark II was officially Justin Hammer's problem-- and the love of the people who would save him from any further harassment. He raised a toast to every man in the country who had decided to shave his goatee at an angle.

__And now, with nothing else on his mind, Tony was free to be in his workshop with his coffee and his favorite playlists. No guilt, no worry, just a welcome return to security after two weeks of being terrified of losing everything that mattered. He didn't like the idea of Hammer eventually having to produce a Jericho Mark II, but really, that was like worrying about a chimp having to reproduce a Rembrandt.

__His thoughts drifted back to Steve. Tony hadn't gone back to visit him, partly for sheer mania and partly out of respect for the possibility that Steve had been speaking out of... maybe not fear, but uncertainty. He might have been wrong about the way he felt, or maybe he didn't realize what he was saying, maybe he just... something.

__But, Tony told himself, let's be honest here. Steve is pure. Everything that exists in him, exists in its purest, ideal-sample, unalloyed form. That won't always be the case, because he's young and he has a lot of ugly reality to slog through in the modern age, but right now... right now he's got that going for him, and it's important.

__“And it's not that I think I'd ruin that for him,” he said, idly talking to no one in a space where “no one” defaulted to “JARVIS” . “But I don't want to be that, I don't want to be the guy he thought he had a crush on. It would be different if it was just sex, if he just wanted to fool around with another guy, that would be fine, but...”

__“Would you rather it was someone else, sir?”

__Tony grumbled into his coffee cup. “...No. No, I wouldn't. Damn.”

__Until the exact moment he decided he wanted to kiss Steve Rogers, he'd been content to let the tension between them simmer. It hummed steadily, fluctuating in intensity but never halting; it was interesting and exciting and Tony liked the way it seemed to accent their friendship.

__And then Steve had ended up in a hospital bed, confessing quietly that he had thrown himself in front of a gun to protect him; he was right, it mattered more when they were unarmed, not just because they were human, but because the armor and shield made it _official_. When it was work, it was easy to pretend it didn't mean anything deeper than that. 

__JARVIS' voice interrupted him as he was putting the engine parts away. “Captain Rogers has returned.”

__Almost as soon as the announcement was made, Steve's voice and some halting footsteps came carefully down the stairs. “Anybody home?”

__Tony got to his feet and came to meet him. “Yeah! Yeah, I'm here-- what are you doing home, I thought you weren't supposed to be back for another few days? How did you even get back?”

__“I wasn't, but.. I needed to see you and they didn't mind giving me a lift.” Steve averted his eyes; his shoulders were already stooped, his face still a bit pale and drawn. “Director Fury told me about what happened with Clint and Natasha and Pepper... did it go well?”

__“Yeah, it went great; have Clint tell you the story later. Are you sure you're okay to be up and walking around?”

__“I'll be fine, but.. we could sit down to talk.”

__Tony felt his stomach clench a little, in a nervous, self-conscious way that he hadn't felt since... probably junior high. Or the age when he ought to have been in junior high, anyway, he'd been overseas at a private junior college by then. “Sure.”

__Steve followed Tony to his workbench, and sat down heavily, his eyes focused uncomfortably on the coffee mugs and bits of machine parts scattered across it. Tony took a seat on the workbench itself, one ankle hooked under his knee, and for a moment, it was a scene of very precarious perfection.

__“So... about that--”

__“Wait.” Steve interrupted him, his gaze firmly averted from Tony's. “I don't mean that. I mean... look, Tony, I'm sorry. I should have said something sooner, but I'd forgotten all about the press conference after-- after I was wounded, and then I didn't put it together again until after you'd left and you never came back to the helicarrier, and by then I didn't know how to reach you without having to go through Fury--”

__“Whoa, Cap. Slow down.” Tony sat up a bit straighter. “What are you even talking about?”

__“The designs that Hammer was trying to steal from you... they were mine. I drew them.”

__It felt like someone had poured cold water down his back; Tony narrowed his eyes at the man sitting in front of him. “You what?”

__“I didn't know Pepper already had them! The mail runs a lot faster than it used to.” Steve took a deep breath. “I just took a submission form from her office, stapled my drawings to it and sent them back to her through the post; they're all on the Stark Industries letterhead, I didn't even have to put my name on them.”

__“Are you--- Are you telling me you designed anti-Iron Man equipment just to set this whole thing up?” Tony slid off the workbench and took a few clipped, pacing steps.

__“No! No, of course not!” Steve stood up with him. “They weren't even real designs, they were just drawings of standard-issue equipment with junk attached to it! Bottle-caps and deadbolt locks and hood ornaments, I think one of them was just a flak jacket stuffed with pinball flippers. I asked Bruce for some convincing science words to label them with, and then I just threw in whatever I thought would get the most red flags.”

__Tony continued pacing, his eyes wide and slowly progressing from 'furious' to 'confused'. “What the Hell for? Is this your idea of nonviolent protest?”

__“To buy you time. You came to me for help, and I flaked. But I knew you could come up with an answer, if you had more time! You're a genius, of course you'd find an answer eventually, you just needed room to breathe." Steve tossed his hands up, and raked them frustratedly through his hair. “And it worked! Pepper got them, she gave them to you as soon as she did, and you--”

__“--Announced to the press that I was onto something new--”

__“Which meant you would have had grounds for an extension. Exactly.” Steve nodded. “But I didn't know that at the time; I wasn't expecting them to get to Pepper for another few days. I thought you really did have a flash of inspiration, and later you and I would have a good laugh over it. But then that reporter asked if the rumor about the Anti-Iron Man stuff was true, and then the attacks started and I... I didn't really have time to think about it, after that.”

__“Why didn't you just tell me all of this in the first place?” Tony asked, and found himself another seat on the workbench. Really, he found it all pretty clever, if kind of stupid and overly complicated. Not to mention it was pretty amusing that apparently Hammer's goons couldn't tell the difference between real military-grade armaments and pinball machine parts.

__“Tony.” Steve sat back down heavily in the chair, sighing in relief that Tony wasn't upset with him. “You came to me after you hadn't slept in days, afraid of losing yourself if you didn't build something you found morally repugnant, something you _used to do_ with no remorse. Do you have any idea what that meant to me?” 

__“...I don't think I do, actually.” He frowned, more at the not-knowing part than the 'without remorse' bit.

__Steve looked up at Tony from his seat, expression solemn, and maybe slightly apologetic. “The guy I read about in your dossier, the one who was okay with zero accountability? That guy would have said, 'Well, Iron Man saves more lives than a few thousand missiles can destroy, and those billions of dollars will go into improving the suit and Arc Reactor technology, so it's a net gain for the world, I can give it one more go'.”

__Tony's brow furrowed as he listened. “Well, golly, Captain America, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

__“Tony, you aren't that guy anymore.” Steve looked down again. “The numbers would have been on your side and nobody would have argued with you, not even me. You could have let it go, just this once, but instead, you came to me with no idea what to do, because compromising on that never even crossed your mind. I know you don't like that you were ever that guy to begin with, but you made the decision to change, and you have.”

__He sighed, and sat back heavily in the chair, fatigued but still full of conviction. “So, why didn't I come to you in the first place? Because I couldn't hear that, and then try to make you lie your way out of it. I wanted you to stick to your guns and come out on top.”

__Tony folded his hands in his lap, for once not having anything to say or fidget with, nothing to ramble about. “There's a lot to read into this, if you're trying to make it a morality tale, Cap,” he said.

__“I know. A lie of omission is still a lie and I'm sorry I didn't have any better ideas. But that's teamwork, sometimes; I couldn't give you what you needed, so I tried to give you a way to get it yourself. It blew up in our faces, and I'm sorry, but I stand by it.” Steve swallowed, and his fingers twitched like he wanted to reach for Tony, but they stayed where they were. “You're a good man, but I don't think you believe me when I tell you that.”

__Tony laughed a little, humorlessly. “If Teddy Roosevelt came up and told you that you had a brass pair, what would you say to that?”

__“I'd tell him I'm just a kid from Brooklyn, but I'd like to think I'd still trust his judgment.” Steve let himself look back up at Tony's face, and there was that hesitant, vulnerable disappointment again, his ears staining uncomfortably pink. “... About before. What was that, Tony? Are we... are we still friends?”

__“Didn't we go over that part?” Tony leaned forward, hands gripped around the edge of his workbench.

__“Did we? You didn't come back after they made you and Bruce and Thor leave. I thought...”

__“I know. I should have gone back, I just... couldn't.” He shrugged.

__“You thought I didn't mean it.”

__“I thought you might have changed your mind. You said it yourself, you weren't thinking clearly and-- look, I'm going to dispense with the bullshit here, you literally risked your life to save mine. You're totally right, it's different when it's Steve and Tony and not Captain America and Iron Man. I don't know what that is to you, because it's something you'd do for anybody. And don't say you wouldn't, because we both know you're a grenade-diver.”

__Steve frowned a little, but he didn't object. “I don't say things.. like that, to everybody I've ever gotten hurt for.”

__“Technically, you didn't say “things like that”, because I knew what you meant and I made a point of not making you say it out loud, so if there had to be a fallout over it, it'd be on me. And that's why I'm leaving this part up to you.” Tony leaned forward, pointedly meeting Steve's eyes. It wasn't very different from any other sparring-match challenge. “Tell me why you did it.”

__“Tony...”

__“I'm serious.”

__“If you're doing this to make fun of me--”

__“I'm not. Tell me, I want the truth.”

__“...You're getting off on this.” Steve's fingers twitched, his jaw tense.

__Tony leaned forward, almost a taunt. “I get off on everything you do. _Answer me_.” 

__All at once, Tony found himself flat on his back, his knees dangling off the edge of the workbench and Steve's fists clenched in the front of his shirt. For a second, barely the space of a heartbeat, he hesitated, and then Steve leaned down over Tony, pinning him to the table from the rise of his hips to the ridge of his collarbones, and let his lips gently rest against the shell of Tony's ear as if he were whispering a very precious, very important secret.

__“I did it because I can't stop gravity or time, but I can _damn_ sure stop a bullet.” 

###### 

######  Post-Credits Stinger: 

__“You wanted to see me, Director Fury?”

__“I wanted to commend you on maintaining your cover. Under the circumstances, that must have been very difficult.”

__“Thank you, sir, but it was my own fault; I was studying it for months, but I didn't realize we couldn't break through the Hammer Enterprises ECM suite until after we were in the building.”

__“The intelligence that that ECM suite even exists was worth the effort; getting our hands on it is going to make sure nothing like this happens again. You did your job; that's all anyone asked you to do.”

__“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

__“Given.”

__“Sir, with all due respect, I don't think it was worth the headbutt, or the looks on their faces. I... I didn't want--”

__“No one thinks you did.”

__“... Yes, sir.”

__“Thank you, Agent Marco. Dismissed.”


End file.
